Host processor systems may store and retrieve data using storage devices (also referred to as storage arrays) containing a plurality of host interface units (host adapters), disk drives, and disk interface units (disk adapters). Such storage devices are provided, for example, by EMC Corporation of Hopkinton, Mass. and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,939 to Yanai et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,394 to Galtzur et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,147 to Vishlitzky et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,857,208 to Ofek, which are incorporated herein by reference. The host systems access the storage device through a plurality of channels provided therewith. Host systems provide data and access control information through the channels of the storage device and the storage device provides data to the host systems also through the channels. The host systems do not address the disk drives of the storage device directly, but rather, access what appears to the host systems as a plurality of logical volumes. Different sections of the logical volumes may or may not correspond to the actual disk drives.
Characteristics of the storage devices containing the data that has been stored across one or more disk drives and of elements of a storage area network (SAN) coupling the storage devices to one or more hosts may be monitored according to different performance statistics and measures. For example, I/O operations initiated by a host will result in corresponding activity in SAN fabric links, storage array ports and adapters, and storage volumes, measured in I/Os per second and Megabytes per second. Other characteristics may similarly be measured. Such characteristics may be significant factors in managing storage system performance, for example, in analyzing use of lowering access performance versus more expensive higher performance disk drives in a SAN, or by expanding number of SAN channels or channel capacity. Users may balance performance, capacity and costs when considering how and whether to replace and/or modify one or more storage devices or components.
In various circumstances, it may be desirable to collect performance data for objects of a storage system including I/O data paths between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices. Known performance data collection techniques may include a user manually determining and selecting individual managed objects for configuration to collect performance data. For example, when the I/O data paths are changed for the application host, with manual configurations a user would have to determine which managed objects changed within the I/O data paths and update performance data collection jobs accordingly to reflect the changes. Such techniques may be disadvantageously complex and subject to user error. In another example, virtual hosts (e.g., hosts running as guest operating systems or virtual machines (VM's)) may be created in a cluster of physical hosts which rely for I/O transport on previously-created, or dynamically changing, I/O data paths.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a system that may be advantageously used for performance data collection, particularly in connection with the display of the performance data for use in a flexible and efficient manner.